These weeks were mainly research based – investigating gender, Wicca religion, dreams, herbology and Beat writers. I initially planned to do a performative sculpture/installation by growing plants in the studio, however I kind of lost interest when I realised that growing plants takes more effort and attention to detail than I care to muster.

I had been thinking about growing plants as the ultimate act of creation – however I had also been writing down my dreams, and reading up on Tibetan Dream yoga, and now I think that dreams are the ultimate act of creation. Many people believe dreams to be 4th dimensional, and representative of our parallel lives, and when I write them down as soon as I wake up, they become stories similar to William Burroughs Naked Lunch: mad, incomprehensible, and able to read in whatever order as they will always be nonsensical. For a group crit and open studio event I did a performance of myself scattering bark and casting a circle in soil, creating a safe space like a Wicca spellcasting ritual, before lying down in it to read select dreams from my dream diary.

This feels like the beginning of something I want to develop further; this was my first live performance, not in front of the camera, and I really liked the energy and how natural it felt, using my body as a piece of art. Will definitely be using this more for next term, perhaps filming a one-take live performance in front of an audience for use as a level of consciousness in my film of 7 chapters.